Effie, Nothing More
by ritergurl12
Summary: Snutty Stuck-up Detail oriented This is Effie Trinket. A Capital Citizen & loving every second of it. But the truth is that she herself is a Districter. Her real name is Estephanie and she grew-up in Three in an abusive household. Deperate, she and her friend Saxton escape and make it to the Capital and will do anything to keep their past a secret with deadly results.
1. Chapter 1

**Effie, Nothing More**

Preface

My mother once told me that your past can always control your future, if you do nothing about it. In many ways my mother was right. I changed my past and got a better future. However, since my past was still my past, it destroyed whatever kind of perfect future I had been hoping for.

My name is Effie, Effie Trinket. Or atleast that is the name you may know me as. My real name is Estephanie Trinket. I'm not the posh Capital Citizen that Katniss told you I was. In fact, I'm not even from the Capital (I beg you never to tell anyone from the Capital this. They will turn me in to the Peacekeepers.) I write this story because of many reasons. One, because Katniss (and many other people) wanted to know my past, wanted to know who I truly was. Second, I wanted to tell the world the truth about life in the Capital. Tell them that it isn't always the glits and glam that is shown on t.v. during the Hunger Games. I wanted to show them the dark side full of lies, plots of murder, and sex driven politions clawling their way to the top.

My final reason for sharing my story to you is to tell you the story of love, hope, and friendship. The story of two people trying to beating the odds. Trying to change their past. Trying to create their future. Trying to find love and happiness in a forgein place.

Chapter 1

"You lying bitch!"

My father was drunk again. Then again, he was always drunk, but right now he was being a violent, angery drunk. My mother had poured out his stash of alcohol, hoping that it would cause him to stop drinking. Sadly, it had not.

_Smack!_ I heard the back of my father's meaty hand colliude with my mother's delicate jaw. Her cheek was already swoolen from past beatings; this would only make it worse. Her frail body hit the solid ground. She lifted her little hand to her cheek, massaging the large red welt that was now growing on her once pretty face.

"Where is it?" He kicked her stomach with his large brown work boots, probably killing the unborn child inside. I watched from my matress up in the storage loft that served as my bedroom, silently begging for him to stop. Unfortunatly, this wasn't the first time I'd begged inside my head for him to stop. My father did some kind of violent act like this atleast once a week, each time for a different, drunken reason. I had reported it to Claud, the head Peacekeeper, but he told me that there was nothing he could do about it because he, nor anybody else, seen my father beat my mother except for myself.

My father grabbed my mother by the her little neck, lifting her to her feet. "All I ever do is provide for you and that girl, you lazy swine. After a long, hard day's work, I would like to be able to come home and have a nice drink, but I can no longer do that, now can I?" His grip around her neck was getting tighter, causing her face to turn a blood red. Her little fingers grabbed at his fat ones. My mother's feet were kicking fiercely a foot off the ground,like a hang-man's dance, while she tried to pry his fingers away from her neck. "I never touched your damn liquor," she choked. It was the honest truth. What I told you earlier about her pouring out the drinks was a little white lie. She had had me pour them out. He squeezed tighter.

"Stop it," I murmered. The abuser did not hear me. My mother's face was now a purpley-red as the blood stopped flowing. "Stop it," I said louder. This time, he could hear me.

"You shut your mouth, you little piece of trash, or I'll do the exact same thing to you." He pointed one meaty finger at me and with his other hand, he still had my mother pinned to the bare white wall. I watched his bloodshot eyes try to find me up in the loft; he probably saw three or more of me moving around up here. Father gave up the search, turned back to Mother, spat in her purple face, and dropped her on the ground. She lay there, sucking in as much air as her lungs could hold, while blood trickled out of the corner of her small mouth. There were thick purple lines across her neck from his hands.

Then Father went outside and threw-up.

"Mother," I called down to her.

"Shh, Estephanie. Stay where you are. I'm fine." Mother was trying to be brave. She was trying to sit-up straight, but her thin arms were too weak to hold her up. She callapsed back onto the ground. "Stay there, Effie."

Effie. The simple little petname I had received so long ago as a child. Mother and Saxton were the only ones who still called me that.

So I laid up there, on my little straw matres, hoping against hope that my foul father would never again walk through the wooden door. Never come home falling over drunk again. Never threaten me. Never beat my mother. However, my depersate wishes were not granted. He stromed through the back door and made a beeline for the cupboard where his liquor had once been stored. Father seemed to have completely forgotten everything that had happened in this small house in the past half-hour.

As he rediscovered his missing liquor, his red eyes fell upon Mother's only cast-iron frying pan that she had taught me to cook with. His meaty fingers wrapped around the handle; he smiled. Father walked up behind Mother, holding the pan up, over his large, round head. What he was planning to do with it clicked inside my mind just as he struck her head.

"Stop it!" I shierked. I kept shouting at him as I hurried down the little wooden ladder, and ran at him with more rage than I had ever felt in my life. I beat my fists on on his back, screaming, "Stop it! You're _killing_ her, stop. You've already killed the _baby_." My words didn't even faze him at all. Not even me mentioning the baby stopped him and his murderous ways.

He crushed her skull. Even after she had been dead for awhile, I continued to strick his back, sobbing. Finally, the mad man had enough of me. He grabbed me by my stringy brown hair and pulled me outside. He dumped me in a gutter and then spat on me. "You lying piece of shit. I don't ever want to see your lying ugly face ever again." Then he left.

I laid there, crying for I don't know how long. My mother was dead along with the child inside of her. My father might as well be dead with all the warmth and love I would ever get from him from now on. I wanted to die. There was nothing left for me here in District Three. I couldn't do anything with technology. I wasn't good at anything, except maybe keeping a schedule and having descent table manners.

What was I suppose to have done, turn myself over to the Peacekeepers and then be sent to the Safe House (for orphined children.) I'd rather be from 12 and in the Hunger Games. Yes, I was that despirate. If I were sent to S.H. I would be more of a no one then I already was. Or worse, they wouldn't turn me in, they would keep me. I would end up being a toy for some creepy Peacekeeper, staying warm in his bed and being fed from the scraps off his table. I needed to get out. Get out of this gutter. Out of this town. Own of this district. But mainly, to get out of my mind.

A cold rain begain to fall from the mountains. The mountains, I thought. In them was the capital, the most beautiful place I had ever seen. Most of the girls I knew thought nothing much of the Capital or the people in it, but that was all I thought about. To live in a pink house. To walk down yellow and orange streets. To wear extravigant clothes and have a different colored wig for every day of the week. To not have a care in the world.

But I was stuck here in Three, forever. I would never see those colorful, shiney except for a few brief moments on the television. We weren't allowed to leave our district unless you were reaped for the Games. There was a large electrical fence that surrounded my district, as well as all the other ones. The only opening was where the train tracks were, and those were always guarded under the watchful eye of Peacekeepers who are armed with large machine guns.

I lay there through the night, listening to the hum of the generators in a near-by factory. No one sees me laying there. They were all inside their homes or at some other public building watching the tributes ride into the Capital Square. The 65th Hunger Games had begun yesterday with the reaping. The tributes from Three were Globe Purest, a thriteen year-old girl, and a sixteen- year-old boy named Laxie Titan. I didn't know either of them.

At dawn, the first of the factory workers were headed off to work. My best friend, Saxton Leddermen, would be one of them. Saxton worked at the factory near my house that made and repair telvisionsets from all over Panem.

I see his brown, leather work boots before I see his concerned face,

Saxton was twenty, two years older than me. He had brown, almost bronze colored hair. He had fairskin with freckles that covered his face, back, shoulders, and chest. His crystal blues eyes, which had been soft and carefree when we were children, were hard from years of working in the factories. Saxton lived in a flat with six other men because he was neither married nor did he have parents to live with; both of his mother and father had died in an explosion in a factory when Saxton was twelve.

The split second he saw my curled-up, shivering body, Saxton ran down the small street towards me. A batch of fresh, salty tears spilled out of my eyes. When he reached me, Saxton pulled me onto the sidewalk, wrapping his arms around my cold, wet body. I leaned against his shoulder, crying.

"Shh, Effie, shh. It's okay. I'm here. Saxton's got you. Shh, shh. Tell me what happened." He brushed my damp hair out of my eyes. "Tell me Effie."

Once I finally got control of my breathing, I told my best friend what had happened. "Father came home tired and drunk again, and was looking for more to drink. Mother had already had me pour out all of his liquor that he had kept stored in the house. So when he couldn't find a drink, he turned on Mother. It started off with just shouting, which is normal, but that turned to slapping, then kicking, then he choked her, which he has never done before. Once he had thrown-up, father went looking for his drinks again. That's when he grabbed the frying pan." Tears got even worse with the last few words.

Saxton rocked me back and forh until I finally calmed myself down.

"I kept beating his back, screaming at him that he had already killed the unborn child in her, and now he was going to kill her too. Once…once she was g-gone, he dragged me outside and left me here to die, which I'd rather do compared to some of the awful alternatives."

He was silent for a while, keeping his arms wrapped around me to protect me from the world. Saxton stood up so quickly, I almost feel back into the gutter. "Stay here. I'll be back for you."

"Wh-where are you going?" He kept on walking in the direction of my former home. "Saxton, what are you doing?"

"I'm killing you father," he said without stopping. I jumped up and went after him. "What do you mean you're 'killing my father?' Saxton, you can't be serious."

"I'm dead serious, Effie. He beat you and your mother for years until he finally killed her and her unborn child. _Something_ must be done." There was such anger in his voice. Anger that mirrored the furry I had felt while I watched my father kill my mother.

Trying to stop him, I grabbed the sleeve of his work jumpsuit. "You _can not_. The Peacekeepers will find out and kill you for sure."


	2. Chapter 2

Author's note: hey guys, sorry for not posting another chapter in, well, over a month. Lots of school work. Anyway, thanks for the reviews, lots help for writing this chapter. Please continue to review and I hope you enjoy this next chapter.

Even with all my rotten luck, I still had hoped that Saxton and I could get away. Escape, live and be free. As Saxton walked away, I became scared. Would we be able to do this? I was terrified that Saxton really would kill my father. Not that I wanted him to get away with what he did to my mother, I feared what would happen. How could Saxton kill him? He is a good guy; my father was the murderer. He had no heart. No soul. No thought or care for another person. What would this do to Saxton psyche? Looking back now, this day was the day that would begin Saxton's transformation to who he would become. But I'll get to that; back to that retched dawn.

As my mother was being murderer, no one was in the streets. No one walked past our little house. They had no need to be; they were all inside, watching 24 hopeless souls parade to their glorified deaths. TVs were turned up loudly, with ear-shattering cheers as Globe and Laxie rode in. No one heard the threats or my attempts to save her life. The frying pan meeting her skull was drowned out by the playing of the Panem anthem. Yet the world was silent in the early hours of the morning. Nothing to drown out the shouting between my father and my defender. Saxton told me that after the screaming there was a brief altercation that ended with the destruction of the inside of my former house and my dad's head going through a concrete wall.

As I waited in fear, I couldn't help but wonder who would find me here. Would Saxton manage to kill him or would my father escape and come looking for me. I held my breath, my heart pounding as my destiny walked towards me. Saxton casually walked down where he had left me, and took my hand. I let all the air out of my lungs as his calm, cool hands took my shaking one, filling me with a surreal calmness that wouldn't last too long.

We quickly walked to the factory where he worked, and Saxton pulled me through a side entrance. If it weren't for the current situation, I would never have put up with such rough treatment, even if it was from Saxton. He slammed the metal door shut just as shrieks and shouting began as the first of my neighbors discover the dead bodies of my parents.

"Saxton," my voice shook, "Wh-what do we do? They'll come looking for me. They'll want to know why both my parents are dead and I'm missing." I was shaking with fear. What was I to do? My brief moment of freedom; stolen before I could even live in it. The Peacekeepers would kill me; make an example of me, if they thought I did it. But really, one of the murderers was already dead, the other holding my hand as he led me through a dimly lit labyrinth. My breath caught in my throat; my best friend was a murderer. But no! He couldn't be, I wouldn't let myself think of him that way. What he did, he had done to protect me. I looked up at Saxton. He wasn't a killer, he was a protector. He had protected me from any revenge my murderous father might have, from the Peacekeepers, from the terrible life homeless girls like me must live through in Three.

"Effie," Saxton pulled me from my mind. "I'm going to hide you in here." He breathed into my ear. "You _must_ stay in this storage closet. No one uses it so no one will find you." His voice was calm, but eyes were pleading with me to obey what h was asking me to do. We stood under a metal staircase, facing a barely visible door. Saxton opened it and pushed me in. "Effie, you _must_ stay in here and not move from this spot until I come and get you. No matter what you hear outside, you cannot come out without me. Do you understand?" I looked around, judging the cluttered room. It was overflowing with large stacks of boxes containing the dreary, gray uniforms that the factory workers, both male and female, have to wear. All I could do was nod my head meekly; this plan of getting away was falling apart before my eyes. Saxton picked me up and lifted me over a box so I might be able to hide easier.

Just before I slipped behind the box, he grabbed my arm. "I will come back for you Effie. I promise." Overwhelmed with fear and uncertainty, I leaned over and kissed him briefly. "Hurry." Saxton let go of my arm; I scurried behind the box and as the door shut, I was locked into terrifying blackness.

What if he didn't come back? What if Saxton was arrested for my parents' murders and I was forgotten here; left to die. These questions and more flooded my already aching brain and I began to have trouble breathing. I couldn't deal with this uncertainty for much longer or I would go crazy. But in reality, Saxton was fine; at first.

He started work as normal, yet less than hour later, Peacekeepers stormed the factory, in search of two wanted people. All workers were to report to the center of the factory floor while the search occurred. In the chaos, Saxton slipped away and returned to me. At first I heard scuffling feet outside the door and feared a fight was about to break out. I climbed over the boxes and groped the door, trying to find the knob. I grabbed it just as a fist thudded against it. "_You cannot come out without me_," echoed through my head. The fist on the other side tried to pull open the door. _No! You will not take me away_, I thought to myself as I pulled back on the door with all my strength. "Effie, open the damn door!" a strained voice huffed quietly.

Relieved, I let go of the handle. The door flew open and in front of me stood Saxton. Before I could do or say anything, he grabbed my hand and pulled me out. We ran down the hall, Saxton's pulling hand begging me to go faster. Peacekeeper shouts echoed from the factory floor ordering the workers to move as the search ended in the main room for Citizen Ledderman (Saxton) ended and the wider search throughout the whole factory began. Red lights flashed and sirens blared as the factory went into lock-down.

"Saxton, why are they looking for you?" I shouted as we ran. Why were they looking for him and not me? We made it to the side door we had entered through earlier. Saxton pushed me out first, and then followed. He grabbed my hand and was about to head off down the currently disserted street when I stopped him and pulled him behind an overflowing dumpster. "What the hell Effie? You want to live right? Come on."

"Dammit Saxton," I startled even myself at my outburst. "How did they know it was you to search for?" he looked away, "Tell me!" I wasn't going to leave until I found out what happened back there.

"Someone- I'll explain later. Effie, we _need_ to get out of here. We have to run, now!" I was ready to run with him. Run with him from this day, this district. But mainly I was ready to run with him from this life. This life ended last night with the death of my mother. Yet I saw something that would stop me from doing any of that. The two Peacekeepers, a block and a half away from where we crouched. The taller, heavier one seemed to be telling the shorter, skinnier one something. Oh God. The first one pointed in the direction of my former home and then to the factory behind us. They were discussing Saxton and I and they would surely notice two people franticly running from the factory that was currently being searched for a double homicide suspect. The whole district knew. Just then, a hovercraft landed on the roof of the factory. They were sending in reinforcements.

Before he had a chance to move, I grabbed Saxton's arm once again, keeping him behind this dumpster. He hadn't seen the two Peacekeepers and was about to run straight into them. "We can't go that way, at least not running like frantic idiots. Don't you see the Peacekeepers? They'll stop us for sure, especially you because you're a former employee here and a murder suspect." I was surprised I was thinking so calmly and logically.

Saxton stopped and thought about this for a moment. "Well," he sighed, "what do you propose we do? Walk around like we're from the Rafter or something?" The Rafter was the rich part of District Three. Well, the people aren't rich like the citizens of the Capitol but they were rich in comparison to the rest of our humble little district. "Like we don't have a care in the world and didn't have to be at work until nine o'clock but decided to take an early morning stroll through the Fog." The Fog was where all of the factories were and where the poorer citizens lived.

What he said gave me an idea. "You know Sax, that's just might work. We could do it. But we'll have to walk arm-in-arm. So it looks like we're a couple." I added quickly, looking down and blushing. Saxton thought for a minute, looking at me, then at the Peacekeepers, weighing our options.

"Only problem is," Saxton pulled at his bland colored jumpsuit. "I only have this and we're too far from my apartment for me to even be able to change."

He was right and we were running out of time. Come on, how could we pull this off? Wait that was it. Pull off. If Saxton could take off the top past of his suit and then put on a different colored shirt, the plan could work.

"Saxton take your jumpsuit off."

"What?" As soon as I said it, I realized how inappropriate what I had just said to him sounded.

"No, no. I mean just take the top part of it off. You know your shirt."

He stared at me blankly. "Again, what?"

I explained to him my idea. "See, if you have a different shirt on that doesn't have the factory's emblem on it, we would look like normal people, not a fugitive factory worker and local girl whose parents are dead." I had thought of everything.

Saxton thought my plan over, nodding his head, but then frowned. "Two things: one, where are you going to get clothes that aren't soaking wet," I'd forgotten about my destroyed nightgown, "and two, where am I going to get this 'other shirt?' We can't just walk into some random house and take peoples clothes. Nor can we buy anything. Someone would recognize us. He sat down, putting his face in his hands and muttered a few choice words. He was right. There were too many flaws in my desperate plan.

Looking for a new escape route, I saw a little apartment that I knew so well. I had been there many times with my mother. There. There we could get help. "Why didn't I think of them before? Come on, Sax, get up."

He stared up at me. "Think of _whom_ before?" he asked. My mind was going a mile a minute. I pointed over to the corner of a building. There, on the ground floor, was a little apartment lived Mr. and Mrs. Collins.

Saxton stood up. He followed my gaze and sighed. "That's nice and all Effie, but what have the two of them have to do with anything? Hey, where are you going?"

I was already walking away from him, down the alley towards the little apartment. Towards the little bit of hope that I still had in my presently hopeless life. "Hurry," I said breathlessly. "Hurry, they can help us." He asked how I knew them. "My mother and I would come here sometimes, really to get away from father, and help them with some of their chores when the two of them were sick or just tired. We are su- we were going to go there today." My voice faltered. Saxton put his hand on my shoulder and gave a concerned look. "Sorry, it-it just hasn't really sunk in yet. I know they're both gone, but I just keep on having this feeling that she'll walk down the street with a basket full of food from the market. That she will see the two of us here so close together and tease us about all of our 'flirting.' I just miss her so much." Saxton brushed away a tear and very gently kissed my forehead. I didn't tell him that I feared that my father would walk up too, and kill us both.

Author's note: I hope you all like the chapter. What do you think will happen next? Who are the Collins? Will Saxton and Effie escape? Don't forget to comment. (the more the better, they really help me write) Also, I'm guessing you've heard that Suzanne Collins has announced she is writing a prequel to THG! What do y'all think it's gonna be about?


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